Hmm. I took the IAT test, and it’s the second test of this type that I have taken. The first one only included black people and white people, and it showed that I have a slight preference for black people. I also took the one linked to in this thread, and it showed I prefer black>asian>hispanic>white. On the chart line they provided, it looked kind of like this…
Black…Asian…Hispanic…White
The weird part is…I’m white. (Although many people tell me they thought I was hispanic or arab, I’m just an olive-skinned Italian.) So it’s possible that I subconsciously hate myself.
I had to write a paper on that movie in college, after watching in once in class. We had to say a bunch of individual things about each character. It was horrible! Not my paper, my paper was great, it was just so difficult to figure out who was who. Thank god for Wikipedia.
I… uh, think that’s a personal thing. I’m a direct, first-generation product of WWII Lithuanian refugee immigration and I have no particular attachment to the immigration patterns of Lithuanian individuals, nor World War II trivia.
I’m olive-skinned Sicilian, and even though the test scored me
Black…Asian.White…Latino
I consciously feel akin to Latino people instead of white people because of complexion (my favorite beauty book is Latina Beauty because finally here was advice for women who look like me) and history (Sicily was part of the Spanish Empire during the same centuries that Mexico was) and cultural stuff (Sicilian music has a very strong Spanish influence whenever guitars are used). Weird.
This is one reason why I give my race as “none of the above.” I cannot fit into any of the established groupings. It comes from a sense of alienation, but also leads to a sense of freedom.
I usually check “prefer not to answer” if it’s an option, because it’s the most honest answer I can give. I think it’s very interesting that we would rate the groups we identify with the lowest. I wonder how common that is and what it says about us.
Ha. I happen to be pretty white, but I’ve noticed that as a group whites, especially educated whites, tend to swing way over to the nominally non-racist side. Overcompensating, I guess, or just plain afraid.
Probably not too far off about East Asian cabbies joking about crazy white woman drivers (not the dominant ethnic group among cabbies that I’ve seen, but the point is taken).
It’s not uncommon for me to be smoking some…cigarettes…or just chilling out with [insert non-white-American] ethnicity and have a few mild remarks come into the conversation about how white [insert town/locale/venue] tends to be. Or for that matter anything about [insert ethnicity]. Generally just mild ribbing/complaining – it’s never seemed like a big deal to me, just normal chit chat.
It’s a universal trait, in my experience – everyone likes to make observations about where they live and the kinds of different people they run into and general demographics/sociological trends. But, again, this kind of rapping/complaining tends to taper off the more educated someone is – but talk to someone long enough and things come back to more nuanced prejudices about politics or economic imbalances.
Anyway, the people I talk to can’t be all that racist or they wouldn’t be spending time shooting the bull with me. Vice versa I guess, but I guess when it comes down to it I’m as racist as anybody else – just not expressed as fear or anxiety or anything but a source of mild amusement on occasion.
I know this thread isn’t supposed to be a place of judgment, one where we can all admit to what hateful bastards we are, but this comment reminded me of the most ridiculous thing I’ve seen in this thread, or anywhere in a long while, an admission of not wanting to honk a car horn at a black guy because she didn’t want to make his life any harder than it already was, being black and all. I don’t even have words for that. Are white people really this crazy?
Well, the Nancypantses are, for sure. I don’t have much of a clue exactly what these whitebread people who don’t live in “mixed” neighborhoods are thinking, but they’re pretty out of touch with the rest of the world.
I don’t know exactly what you’re thinking of here, but just based on this–I’d say those comments aren’t necessarily racist. The ‘race’ labels, in specific local contexts, can serve as shorthand for cultural descriptions. There’s nothing wrong with recognizing that cultures differ and talking about that.
Hell, I had trouble with blonde chicks and fratty guys. Thank god people tend to sit in the same spot in the classroom. My phone is full of contacts with names like Ashley Iced Coffee and Devon Carries Hockey Bag.
Yeah, that was me. In the scenario I described, I have no idea why I hesitated to honk, just that it had to do with race. It was just, ''Man, that guy’s an asshole. Wait, he’s black. Wait, why does that matter?" and by then he was gone. I grew up in a poor racist rural area hearing people talk shit about black folks all the time, and then I moved out East where I had a formal academic sequence on critical race theory taught by a leader of the civil rights movement. So I went from a message of ‘‘all black people are horrible’’ to a message of ‘‘all black people are oppressed and it’s all your fault.’’ And keep in mind this was social work school, and full of angry people with axes to grind. Everything was viewed through the lens of oppression.
I’ve lived in a fairly multi-cultural environment for at least a decade now, and there were plenty of black people where I grew up, but still those two extremes of ideology seem to have the heaviest influence on the way I think about race. I so want to avoid becoming one of the racist scumbags I knew back home that I err on the side of Nancypants.
I seem to remember a study with a bunch of white people indicating that one of the main reasons white people avoid black people is because they are afraid of being perceived as racist. If that’s not irony, I don’t know what is.
The whole point of posting that little anecdote is that my reaction in that moment was NOT normal - it was based on a stereotype. It might be a different sort of thing than the kind of racism other people are discussing in the thread, but it’s still wrong and prejudiced and worthy of discussion. I was speculating as to where my reaction came from, not trying to justify it.
Girl, sometimes you just gotta chalk it up to being silly. I do it too, and I’m working on it too. But if you start talking about civil rights leaders who blamed you for racism and somehow connecting that to an EXTREMELY patronizing reaction to a black man, I’m surely going to comment on that.
I have followed many of your posts on this board and I would guess I have far more race issues than you do, so I’m not judging you. But I know my racist attitudes are silly, and if someone catches me sounding like I’m making excuses, I would expect them to flat out state it. You say you weren’t making excuses, so perhaps I’ve misread you. In which case, my mistake.
It didn’t sound like she was making excuses to me.
It sounded like she was trying to connect her thought processes with the things she has experienced. Instead of just chalking up her behavior to her silly lizard brain and leaving it at that.
It bothers me when people share a moment of uncomfortable self-awareness, in a thread where doing so is 100% relevant, and they are given a hard time about it. E
Sorry it bothers you, hope it doesn’t bother them, because there is no way to have these kinds of discussions without the convo getting a bit heavy. If everyone else is willing to bare their souls without excuses, then no one should expect a ‘give the girl a break’ pass.
I have done some things I’m not proud of in my life, and in retelling it, I am careful not to say things like, “<snip> I grew up in a poor racist rural area hearing people talk shit about black folks all the time, and then I moved out East where I had a formal academic sequence on critical race theory taught by a leader of the civil rights movement. So I went from a message of ‘‘all black people are horrible’’ to a message of ‘‘all black people are oppressed and it’s all your fault.’’ And keep in mind this was social work school, and full of angry people with axes to grind. Everything was viewed through the lens of oppression.”
To my ear, that sounds exactly like an excuse. That is my definition of the word excuse.
Of all racism, the soft, doughy patronizing kind is the kind that bothers me the most. If I see someone indulging in it, I can deal. If I find them making excuses for it, I may have to comment. Not browbeat, mind you. But comment.
Perhaps it WASN’T an excuse and I need to retune my radar. I will consider that. But otherwise, I don’t really think Olives needs any white knighting. I haven’t abused her.
